POPSUGAR Celebrity

Tot Gets Tat: Mom Gets Jailtime?

Jan 23 2012 - 3:16am

Tats on tots? Tattoos are a divisive aesthetic on adults; the thought of a child [1] actually getting their sweet lil skin permanently inked is a pretty unpleasant idea, to say the least. Yet that's exactly what 10-year-old Gaquan Napier did with the full support of his mother Chuntera [2]. According to the law in Georgia, where the family lives, it's illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to get tattooed — with or without parental consent, a fact that Napier claims to have been unaware of when she granted her child permission to permanently mark his body.

This story sounds pretty black-and-white — what was she thinking? — until we learn more details of the reason behind the tattoo. Two years ago, Gaquan was with his older brother Malik when he was struck and killed by a teenage driver at the heartbreaking age of 12. When Gaquan went to his mother and asked her permission to get a tattoo in memory of his deceased brother, Napier said, "It made me feel good to know that he wanted his brother on him."

Napier is currently in custody and facing a charge of misdemeanor child cruelty. In several other states, a child getting inked with the parents' permission is perfectly legal, so do you think this mom deserves to serve time for allowing her son to create a memorial to his big brother?